The Small Family     

First and foremost, a slightly belated Merry Christmas to all! Hope your holidays were peaceful and happy.

As for us, what a busy week we had! On Monday I babysat Emma (age 4) and Jamie (15 months) for a few hours while my friend Janeane went to an appointment and did some very quick last-minute Christmas bits. Theo was very happy to have his friends come play, and my life was made easy by the fact that they all kept each other entertained--all I really had to do was make sure no one took a header down the stairs, and all was well. Jamie growled at me a few times when I blocked his access to the stairs, but other than that we had happy (albeit gooey, due to lingering colds) faces all around!

Tuesday evening, my friend Jeanette came over to give Theo a Christmas present--a little power drill that he rapidly became obsessed with! And then Jeanette and I went out for Mexican food, as did Chris and Theo (at a different place--and I’m pretty sure Chris and Theo didn’t have margaritas, as Jeanette and I did!). Jeanette and I decided to just do a girls’ dinner instead of exchanging gifts this year, to save a bit of money and because, let’s face it, girls’ nights are just plain fun!

Wednesday morning we headed down to San Jose for an early Christmas celebration with Chris’s family. Grandpa Tom and Grandma Kathy spoiled both boys with lots of presents, and we had a lot of fun watching the boys open them. After a delicious dinner of La Villa ravioli (I believe this is a Small family tradition around Christmas), prepared by Chris’s parents, we retired to our hotel for dogs for the evening. (Yes, all hotels are still hotels for dogs in Theo’s world.)

I can’t say Wednesday night was particularly restful. Quite the opposite, really. Stupid me stayed up reading a book (I wanted to finish it!) until midnight. Then I went to sleep…only to be woken at 1am by Theo fussing in his sleep. And then to be woken at 2am by Theo fussing in his sleep. That second time, it took me an hour of tossing and turning, but I was just falling back asleep when he fussed again in his sleep at 3am. At 3:20, he woke up and started talking. And wouldn’t go back to sleep. After 20 minutes or so, I decided I’d try to let him share the big bed with me. (His Pack and Play really isn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, I’m sure.) Well, that was fun…but sleep wasn’t happening. I almost had him back to sleep twice by scratching his back and snuggling, but the minute I’d think he was asleep and shift my weight slightly, up would pop his head, and he’d start talking animatedly again. He kept chortling, “I see Daddy over there!” and pointing at Chris’s bed, and Chris, not being the type to wake up gracefully in the middle of the night, would grouse and grumble. Theo finally said, “Daddy mad!” which made me laugh, because Chris really was kind of crabby, though he was trying to stay mellow about it.

Ninety long minutes later, and we finally put Theo back in the Pack and Play. By then it was 5am, and I had been up since 2am--only having two broken hours of sleep. Chris patted Theo’s back for a solid 30 minutes before he finally went back to sleep, and we got a lovely two more hours of sleep. Good lord, child…. That is actually very out of character for Theo--he’s a really good sleeper 99% of the time. But in hotels, all bets are off. Can’t say I blame him--I never sleep well in hotels either. I wasn’t upset, though, because at least he was cheerful. Last year when we went down to San Jose for Christmas, he was up most of the night too--but he was screaming like crazy because, as we discovered a couple days later, he was cutting his first two molars. (Merry Christmas to us--several nights of crummy sleep!) So I was just happy he wasn’t squalling in the middle of the night this year. :-)

Thursday morning, Chris’s parents hosted a small get-together for the family, so Theo got to see Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill, Aunt Carol and Uncle Erryl, and Great-Grandma Norma (as well as Auntie Tanya, Uncle Steve, and Nik). We had a delicious brunch of two kinds of strata, quiche, fruit, mimosas, and various baked goodies, and then the boys opened a couple more presents. We had to hit the road by 1:30 to get home in time to pick up the dogs at the kennel, and it’s a good thing we left when we did--it took us 3 1/2 hours to get home! The weather was fine (beautiful, in fact); there were just a lot of cars on the road, so traffic kept slowing down. (It normally takes us about 2 hours and 15 minutes, so it was over an hour extra on the road this year--ugh. Luckily, Theo napped for 90 minutes of it.)

Christmas Eve was just the three of us, and we went to the zoo in the morning, since we had a two-day break in the stormy weather. It was free admission day at the zoo--which meant nothing to us, since we get in free as members, but it meant it was much more crowded than usual. But it’s a big enough zoo that it didn’t feel too crowded, and Theo loved running around and seeing the animals.

In the evening, we took Theo back to the neighborhood in Rocklin that does all the Christmas lights, and this time it went much better. You may recall that last time we had to abort our trip and flee halfway through because Theo started yelling obscenities and wouldn’t stop. I’m pleased to report that he hasn’t used a curse word in almost a week, and this time our trip to see the lights was a lot of fun. Chris and I exchanged a gift on Christmas Eve night--a couple stocking stuffers for me, and a new edition of Trivial Pursuit for Chris. Being the nerds that we are, we spent the rest of the evening having a Trivial Pursuit tournament!

Christmas morning was just the three of us, too, and we took our time opening gifts, breaking up the morning with a walk to Starbucks. Theo had a half-dozen presents to open, but he wanted to play with each one as he opened it, so we just stretched present-opening to three hours and let him set the pace. It was very relaxing, really, and Theo seemed to very much like all his presents. We got him a big fire truck, a couple instruments, an art easel, and a LeapFrog toy, but his favorite gift was the $1 harmonica I found at Target on Christmas Eve and threw in his stocking at the last minute. He walked around much of the day playing his harmonica, like a little Blues man! Funny thing is, he actually plays it relatively well, considering he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s been obsessed with A Chipmunk Christmas (a 25-minute DVD) for the past several weeks, and Alvin plays a harmonica, so I thought he’d get a kick out of it. I think I underestimated just how much of a kick he’d get out of it, though!

He also received gifts from several family members and friends, so he has a lot of new things to play with and read--what fun!

We went to my sister’s house for Christmas dinner, and we had a great time with Grandma Diane, Auntie Lynnie and Uncle Charles, and cousin Stevie. Unfortunately, cousins Sam, Tyler, and Noelle were spending Christmas with their dad this year, so we didn’t get to see them, but we had a great time just the seven of us, and my sister made an awesome meal. On the way home, we stopped to see a really neat Christmas-light display synched to music at a house near my sister’s house--a great way to cap off the evening. (Well, really, we capped it off with another Trivial Pursuit tournament after we put Theo to bed….)

On Sunday, Chris and I traded a few hours of “free” time, though I personally think mine was more exciting than his! I really wanted to see The King’s Speech with my friend Amber, so Chris held down the fort for a couple hours in the afternoon. In exchange, I gave him a couple hours to do with as he pleased on Sunday morning, thinking he’d opt to go out and about or maybe go to Starbucks for a couple hours of peaceful reading. Um, no. The crazy guy decided he wanted to spend his free time organizing Theo’s room. And so he did--and it now has a neat little reading corner with a Theo-sized chair (formerly downstairs), his art easel set up, and a bunch of toys moved out to the garage for storage and to make room for his Christmas gifts. While he did that, Theo and I stayed downstairs and dismantled Christmas. I normally love to leave the decorations and tree up until New Year’s, but Chris and I had both had it in terms of constantly telling Theo not to shake the tree and not to yank the strings of lights. Our tree has been up a month, and he has not lost interest in trying to dismantle it, shake it, or pull the lights off. So, we gave up the fight on Dec 26th and just took it all down. I thought Theo might be rather upset about the beloved tree coming down, but he actually had a lot of fun helping me take the decorations and lights off (finally, finally, he had my blessing to touch the lights and pull everything off!), and he didn’t seem the least bit upset.

As for The King’s Speech, I was not at all disappointed--what a terrific movie! It was funny and touching and moving all in one. I love, love, love Colin Firth, and he was excellent as King George VI, but I do think Geoffrey Rush stole the show--if he doesn’t get a Best Supporting Oscar award for that, my name is mud. Funny thing is, I don’t really know much about the whole Wallis Simpson/abdication thing, but I always thought it was sort of romantic--the king abdicating the throne for the woman he loved. But in this movie, Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII were utterly unlikable…which disappointed me because apparently Wallis Simpson was a big fan of pugs! Given that I adore pugs myself, I would’ve liked to like Ms. Simpson, but no--she and Edward VIII came across as rather self-centered, unlikable people. Poor pugs…perhaps they should’ve taken the place of the royal Corgis instead. ;-)

A side note: For any Harry Potter fans, the actor who plays Wormtail in the movies plays Winston Churchill in The King’s Speech, and I could not help but snicker every time he came on, because I kept thinking of him as Wormtail! He wears much the same expression as Churchill as he does as Wormtail.

Anyway, I highly recommend the movie to anyone with even the faintest interest in it. It really is very well done and a lot of fun to watch. Two big thumbs up! 

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, too!